This is simply cauliflower cheese with mashed potato and cheese on top, then baked in the oven. I used the BBC Good Food Cauliflower Cheese recipe (halved to serve 3), forked some mashed potato that we had leftover from the night before on top of it, covered it in grated cheese and baked in the oven at 200C for about 15 minutes.

Related posts:

1. Roasted stuffed courgette with cheese and tomato Tonight’s dinner was practically free, made with ingredients from the...
2. Quorn chilli cheese pie The Blue Anchor in Ruckinge does fantastic food and last...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

While making tonight’s dinner, I sliced one finger on the mandolin while getting it out of the cupboard, poured boiling water on another finger and burnt my other hand on the oven. The food had better be worth all this pain, I thought.

It was.

You can see the recipe on the BBC Good Food website.

I used normal potatoes instead of sweet potatoes, fresh spinach instead of frozen and I crushed the garlic and left it in the cream with the thyme.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I think I’ve made the perfect soup. Or is it just that you can’t go wrong if you add chilli and cheese to everything? Either way, this soup was amazing. No exact quantities, it was a chuck it in the pan with some stock and see what happens kind of soup. 

Spicy potato and cabbage soup with camembert (serves 5)
1 onion, chopped
1 red chilli, chopped
3 medium potatoes, cut into small chunks
Half a savoy cabbage, chopped
100g (roughly, I’m not really sure) camembert, cubed
1,500ml vegetable stock
Salt and pepper

Cook the onion and red chilli in some of the stock until the onions are soft
Add the potato and the rest of the stock and simmer for about 15 minutes
Add the cabbage and simmer for another 5 minutes or until the potatoes and cabbage are tender
Add salt and pepper and blend
Add the camembert and blend again

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I had planned to make Lazy cheesy vegetable hotpot from the BBC Good Food website but I didn’t have any leeks and I didn’t want to cook it in the microwave, so I kind of did my own thing and I’m glad I did, as the result was The Meat Eater telling me to never cook it again, which translated to English means he enjoyed it very much and would like to have it again some time in the near future.

It was creamy and cheesy and crispy and everything else that makes a proper dinner.

Brie and potato vegetable bake (serves 2 if you’re too lazy to make anything else to go with it)

1 onion, chopped
2 potatoes, thinly sliced
1/4 small cabbage, chopped
2 large handfuls of spinach, chopped
8 chestnut mushrooms, sliced
1 pack of Brie, rind left on and cut into pieces
4 large tbsps of crème fraîche
Butter
Olive oil
Thyme

Put the oven on at 180C
Heat the oil and the butter in a frying pan
Add the onions and fry for a few minutes until soft
Add the cabbage and mushrooms and fry for a few more minutes
Add the spinach until wilted
Stir in the creme fraiche and season
Put the vegetable mixture into a dish
Lay the potato slices on top
Scatter on the cheese
Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

After not being mightily impressed with the meals so far cooked out of The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook, I thought I’d choose what had to be a foolproof recipe. A recipe containing leeks and potatoes cooked in cream, milk and cheese can’t go wrong, can it? No, it can’t. It got a rating of ‘yum’ by The Meat Eater and didn’t get put in the bin.

Here it is pre-oven

and post oven

and on the plate.

The blurb said (yes, I know, why do I take so much notice of what the blurb says?) that it didn’t need much in the way of accompaniment other than a light salad but I had been tempted to have it with a burger but took a trip to the tip while it was cooking and had it on its own when I got back. A burger or sausage would have gone nicely with it, although, at 719 calories per portion, maybe stick to the light salad they suggest.

Potato and leek boulangere (serves 4-6)
Preparation: 15 minutes
Cooking: 1 hour
Suitable for freezing
Calories per serving (4 portions): 719
kj 2996
Protein 18g
Fat: 51g (saturated fat 32g)
Carbohydrate: 50g

Ingredients
25g (1oz) butter
500g (1lb) leeks, sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
875g (1 3/4 lb) potatoes, scrubbed and thinly sliced
4 tomatoes, sliced
300ml (1/2) pint double cream
300ml (1/2) pint milk
125g (4oz) smoked cheese, grated
salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Use the butter to grease a large, deep 30 x 30cm (12″ x 12″) ovenproof dish. Put in half of the chopped leeks and garlic, cover with half of the slices of potato and season well.
2. Cover with a layer of the remaining leeks and garlic, then the remaining potato slices and season well again. Cover with the slices of tomato.
3. Mix the cream with the milk and pour over the top.
4. Cover with grated cheese and bake in a preheated oven, 180c, Gas Mark 4, for 1 hour or until the potatoes are cooked and the cheese well browned.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Today’s veg box arrived containing a cabbage and potatoes. Luckily enough, Leith’s Vegetarian Bible had a recipe containing both cabbage and potatoes and as it involved cooking it in garlic, double cream and cheese I thought that sounded like a winner.

And it was, as The Meat Eater declared it ‘very yum’ and gave me permission to cook it again. Maybe I’ll give him permission to cook it himself.

Potato and cabbage gratin (serves 4)

Ingredients
675g new potatoes
Butter, for greasing
1 clove of garlic, crushed
290ml double cream
225g Savoy cabbage, shredded
1 tablespoon chopped fresh marjoram
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
55g Gruyere cheese, grated
1 tablespoon freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Cayenne pepper
Dry English mustard

(I swapped Leerdammer cheese for the Gruyere as Tesco didn’t have any vegetarian Gruyere and I omitted the Parmesan as Tesco didn’t have any veggie Parmesan-style cheese either. I also swapped the fresh marjoram for dried as Tesco didn’t have any fresh marjoram.

Maybe I should start shopping at Waitrose.)

Method

1. Wash the potatoes and cook them in boiling water until just tender. Drain and cut into halves or quarters depending on size.
2. Preheat the oven to 200c/gas mark 6. Grease an ovenproof dish with butter.
3. Stir the garlic into the cream and mix together with the potatoes, cabbage and marjoram. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Spoon half the potato mixture into the base of the dish. Sprinkle the Gruyere cheese on top and cover with the remaining potato. Season the Parmesan cheese with a pinch each of cayenne and dry English mustard and sprinkle over the top.
5. Cover the dish with kitchen foil and bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for a further 10-15 minutes until the top is golden brown.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I asked The Meat Eater to get me some potatoes from the supermarket.   I didn’t write down exactly the type of potato I wanted as I just wanted one large-ish potato and wasn’t really bothered which type and the only type I didn’t want and didn’t expect him to buy was new potatoes. 

So he came back with new potatoes.  Sigh.  He asked what I was making and I said potato cakes with mushrooms and he said can’t he just have potatoes and mushrooms? and so I said no.

Still, we had some old-ish potatoes in the cupboard, so I cut off the sprouty bits and used them instead.

The recipe says it makes a substantial main course.  Which is rubbish.  I made it more substantial by serving it with sausages and something else now that I can’t remember.

Oven-baked potato cakes with mushrooms and thyme (taken from Leith’s Vegetarian Bible)
Serves 4

Oil, for brushing
450g/1lb floury potatoes, such as Maris Piper
55g/2oz butter
1 egg yolk
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Freshly grated nutmeg
Plain flour, for shaping
Chopped fresh flat-leafed parsley, to garnish

For the filling
450g/1lb mushrooms
1 tablespoon olive oil
30g/1oz butter
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
Lemon juice
1 tablespoon dry sherry

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6.  Brush a baking tray with oil.
2. Peel and quarter the potatoes and cook them in boiling salted water until tender.
3. Drain the potatoes and return to the pan.  Mash over a low heat.  Remove from the heat and add the butter and egg yolk.  Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg and beat well.
4. Divide the mixture into 8.  With floured hands shape into flat cakes about 10cm/4in in diameter.  Place on the baking sheet and bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes.  Turn, using a fish slicer, and bake for a further 15 minutes.
5. About 10 minutes before the potato cakes are ready, make the filling:  Cut the mushrooms into chunky pieces.  Heat the oil in a heavy frying pan.  Add the butter and when foaming, briskly fry the mushrooms until tender.  Add the garlic, thyme and lemon juice to taste and season with salt and pepper.  Fry for a further 2 minutes.  Add the sherry and bring to the boil, scraping any sediment from the base of the pan.
6. Lift 4 of the potato cakes on to 4 individual plates.  Divide the filling between them and top with a second potato cake.  Sprinkle with the parsley.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Another BBC Good Food recipe.  The Meat Eater said, after two forkfuls, that if I made this for him every night, he’d marry me.  I’m not sure if that’s reward or punishment? Hmm.

Green garden veg pie 
Easy
Serves 4
Prep 15 mins
Cook 35 mins

Ingredients
50g butter
2 tsp mustard powder
600ml milk
200g mature cheddar, grated
2 large potatoes, sliced into rounds
1 head broccoli, cut into little florets
200g frozen peas
small bunch chives, snipped
50g flour
1 head cauliflower, cut into little florets

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then stir in the flour and mustard powder and cook for 1 min.  Gradually stir in the milk until smooth with no lumps, then keep stirring until the mixture begins to bubble and thickens to a creamy sauce.  Remove from the heat, then stir in all but a handful of the grated cheese.
2. Heat oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7 and bring a large pan of water to the boil.  Cook the potato slices for 5 mins, tip in the broccoli and cauliflower for another 3 mins, then finally add the peas for 1 more min.  Drain all the veg and pat dry.  Reserve enough potato slices to cover the top of the finished dish, then gently stir the rest of the vegetables into the sauce with the chives.
3. Tip into a deep ovenproof dish, arrange over the reserved potato slices, then sprinkle with remaining cheddar.  Bake for 20-25 mins until the topping is golden and crisp, the serve straight from the dish.

Cooking notes
I used soya milk, didn’t have a pan as big as a house so cooked the potatoes separate from the broccoli/cauliflower/peas and didn’t bother to pat them dry.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.